The cottonmouth is a small poisonous reptile. In length, his body, given the tail, rarely outgrows eighty-five centimeters. The upper part of the body is painted in a dark brown color, broken by light stripes, vaguely resembling zigzags. The belly is the lightest part of the body. The head is large. If you look at it from above, it seems somewhat flattened. Shields are located on the upper part of the muzzle. It is because of them that the snake got its name - the common muzzle.
Snake habitat
Ordinary, or Pallas, muzzle, as it is called differently, has a fairly wide area of residence. The snake lives in the distant Caucasus, in mysterious Mongolia, in northern Iran. She was seen in the middle part of Asia, as well as in Korea and China. In Russia, the common muzzle lives in large numbers in the Lower Volga region, up to the borders of the Far East.
The reptile's point habitat is veryvaried. This species of vertebrates cannot be called one hundred percent steppe or only mountain. It does not live exclusively in forests. Cotton muzzle is equally found both in green massifs and in the expanses of endless steppes, in semi-deserts. The reptile lives in regions rich in swamps, as well as in meadows near the beautiful Alps. It has a weakness for river banks. If we look at the mountains, then there the muzzle can be found at an altitude of up to three thousand meters.
Muzzle activity
Common muzzle reaches the peak of its active lifestyle immediately after the end of wintering, that is, in the first months of spring. It is at that time of the year that they behave extremely aggressively. This behavior in the spring can be explained by the start of the mating season. Until the beginning of summer, the common muzzle adheres to a daily lifestyle. You can catch him bathing in the rays of the heavenly body.
With the onset of summer, the regime changes dramatically. The snake begins to crawl out to hunt after dusk falls to the ground. During the day, she prefers to hide from the sun in dark places, for example, in the burrows of field mice, dense thickets of bushes, cracks between stones. With the onset of the first cold weather, the muzzle begins to actively look for a place where it will spend the winter. The time when the snake stops active life depends on the region in which it lives. In the Russian Federation, as a rule, muzzle hibernates somewhere in early October.
What does a snake eat?
With the approach of night muzzlethe common one gets out of the shelter and starts searching for prey. These snakes eat all the animals that they are able to defeat and swallow. A significant part of their diet is occupied by various rodents: field mice, shrews and others. Quite often, the reptile destroys the nest of small birds that build houses on the ground or not far from it. The muzzle swallows both the bird itself and eggs with chicks. In addition, he catches lizards, frogs or toads. An attack on smaller snakes is a common thing for a muzzle. Newborn individuals feed on insects.
These reptiles do not have to fight with a potential victim. As a rule, their hunting takes place according to the following principle. The snake sneaks up to the prey, gets to it with a sharp throw, after which it bites, introducing a dose of poison into the body. The frightened victim tries to run away, but the poison kills him faster than he can leave. On the head of the muzzle there is a special thermosensitive fossa. With its help, the snake finds the dead victim, trapping the heat emanating from her body.
Reproduction of muzzle
Females of this species of reptiles, like a significant proportion of other viper snakes, are viviparous. Newborn snakes are born in thin translucent sacs, which are immediately disposed of. One female is able to bring from two to twelve cubs. The color of small muzzles exactly repeats the colors of the parent. In the first period of life, babies eat small invertebrate animals. Growing up, they move on to prey of larger sizes. An adult Pallas muzzle can be quite large. Body length can reach eighty centimeters.
Snake venom
The cottonmouth is a venomous snake. Its poison in its effect on the body resembles the bite of a viper. First of all, the poison affects the state of the blood. However, the constituent components of the poison are neurotoxins. They have a direct negative effect on the state of the nervous system, and also cause paralysis of the respiratory system. For a human, the bite of the muzzle in most cases is not fatal. But fatal incidents were still recorded. The venom of this snake is dangerous for people suffering from respiratory diseases.
